316 related texts · 8 related myths · Page 3 of 7
The Mekhilta addresses whether the four-and-five payment applies to consecrated animals, those dedicated to the Temple. If someone steals a consecrated animal and slaughters it out...
(Exodus 22:18) "Whoever lies with a beast shall be put to death": What is the intent of this? It is written (Leviticus 20:15) "And a man who cohabits with a beast shall be put to d...
The rabbis asked a strange question: why did King Solomon compare Israel to a walnut? Not a cedar, not a vine, not wheat, a walnut. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sichnan, speaking in the name ...
What does God do all day? The Talmud in Tractate Avodah Zarah takes this question seriously. The rabbis laid out a detailed twelve-hour schedule. During the first three hours, God ...
Rabbi Elazar ben Dordia was a man consumed by desire. The Talmud in Tractate Avodah Zarah says there was not a single prostitute in the world he had not visited. When he heard abou...
Rabbi Simlai made one of the most ambitious claims in the entire Talmud. He said: 613 commandments were given to Moses at Sinai, 365 prohibitions corresponding to the days of the s...
The righteous reach the Garden of Eden and refuse to begin the feast without the Host. That is the nerve of Otzar Midrashim's Feast of the Garden of Eden. In the world to come, God...
Before the sun existed, there was light. This is one of the oldest puzzles in Genesis, God creates light on the first day, but the sun and moon don't appear until the fourth. The r...
Part of the renewed covenant included a specific military promise. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, lists them by name. "Observe that which I command yo...
When Rabbi Yosei of Milḥaya died, Rabbi Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish went up to perform an act of kindness136They went to participate in the funeral. and Rabbi Yitzḥak Pesaka went up w...
“And did not remember His footstool [hadom raglav],” Rabbi Ḥanina bar Yitzḥak said: The Holy One blessed be He does not remember that blood [hadam] that was between the legs of the...
Ben Sira, in his wisdom, reminds us of something fundamental: "If they were not, you would not have come to the world." Your parents, your ancestors... they paved the way. And what...
It comes from the Book of Jubilees, specifically chapter 46. The Book of Jubilees, for those who aren't familiar, is an ancient Jewish text that retells the stories of Genesis and ...
Abraham did everything the angel commanded. He slaughtered the animals, divided them, and gave the portions to the angels who had appeared beside him. Iaoel took the birds. Abraham...
The angel turned back to Abraham. "Know from this moment that the Eternal One has chosen you. Be of good courage and use this authority, as far as I bid you, against him who slande...
"Now look again in the picture," God said. "See who it is that seduced Eve and what is the fruit of the tree. You will know what shall be and how it shall be for your seed among th...
God answered Abraham's question about evil with a revelation about the nations. He was angered at them on account of Abraham's descendants, the people who would be separated after ...
The familiar telling remembers angels as these purely good, ethereal beings. But what happens when angels, shall we say, misbehave? The story of Azazel and Shemhazai is one of thos...
Legends of the Jews turns to Shemhazai and the Angels of Azazel. Shemhazai and Azazel, as Legends of the Jews recounts, weren't deterred from, shall we say, fraternizing with the d...
It wasn't just the loss of one loved one; it was a cascade of sorrow that threatened to overwhelm him completely. The news of his son Joseph's supposed death – a deception, as we k...
The Israelites knew that feeling all too well. Remember the Golden Calf? A colossal screw-up. A moment of collective insanity that threatened to shatter everything. What happened a...
Sometimes, the answer was surprisingly simple: drawing lots. And that's precisely how a potential crisis was averted after the Exodus, involving the firstborn sons of Israel. after...
It wasn't always straightforward, and the process of selection was often just as important as the people chosen. In the vast pattern of Jewish tradition, choosing leaders was a sac...
He went straight to the top, appealing to God Himself. Why? What went wrong? But God wouldn't answer. Why the divine silence? It wasn't just some cosmic mood swing. the verse says,...
Yikes. The "trumpets," of course, are the shofar, the ram's horn, whose blasts are meant to awaken our souls, to call us to repentance and introspection. And the prayer, "On this D...
The story of Esther begins with a drunken king and a queen who said no. King Artaxerxes of Persia hosted a lavish feast, 180 days of celebration for his court, then seven more days...
Antipater wanted the throne so badly he was willing to destroy every member of his own family to get it. And for a while, it worked. The Josephus says in Antiquities XVI, Antipater...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a companion volume to the Zohar that explores the deeper meanings of the Torah, offers us a fascinating glimpse into this cosmic struggle. It...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, that mystical exploration of the Zohar itself, gives us a glimpse into why. It tells us that the prayer of Shabbat, called qabalah – acceptan...
It's more complex than it first appears, and sometimes, the line between them gets surprisingly blurry. Take Azazel, for example. We find this fascinating figure mentioned in Tikku...
The mystical text, Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, in section 108, uses just that image to explore themes of repentance, judgment, and the wandering of the Shekhinah (the Divine...
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, culminates in a moment like that. It's called Neilah – the Closing Prayer. The question is what closing means. What’s at stake? Well, according to...
There’s so much more to it than just a spiritual "reset" button. on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, tradition tells us that God sits in judgment of everyone. Then, on Yom Kippu...
This particular midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), or interpretive commentary, grapples with a powerful phrase: "death of the son." But what does it truly mean? It’s not a...
A fascinating collection of stories and interpretations, Moses spent forty days atop Mount Sinai. Imagine him there, not just receiving the Torah, but delving deep into its meaning...
The scene opens with Sammael, often understood as a figure representing the accuser or even the embodiment of evil, in conversation with the Holy One, blessed be He. Sammael is ess...
Our ancestors felt that too, especially when seeking connection with the Divine. The scene is set in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (chapter 46), a fascinating text that expands on biblica...
The Yalkut Shimoni, a vast collection of rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible, compiled sometime in the 13th century, hints at just such a thing. Specifically, the commentary on...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Saga of Molech. The passage deals with the horrific practice of child sacrifice, specifically "one who passes his son or daughter through fire." The text st...
Rabbi Yehuda said, "Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) before the Holy One, Blessed be He: One of wholly righteous people; and they are immediately writt...
Simeon ben Kamhith was serving as High Priest. He had walked with a foreign king, and in the course of the conversation a drop of spittle from the king's mouth touched Simeon's gar...
The sages taught that forty years before the Second Temple burned, its destruction had already begun to show in the quiet details only the priests could read. On Yom Kippur, the lo...
Of the four sages who entered Pardes, the mystical orchard of divine secrets, one emerged and lost his belief. His name was Elisha ben Abuyah, and the tradition eventually renamed ...
(Genesis 19:34) is a verse most readers speed past. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slows down and lets us hear the elder daughter plan. "And it was the day following, and the elder said to...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan lets us listen in on Esau's inner counsel, and it is chilling. "Esau said in his heart, I will not do as Kain did, who slew Habel in the life (time) of h...
(Exodus 25:22) contains one of the most intimate promises in the Torah. The Holy One tells Moses that He will meet with him there, above the kapporet, the mercy-seat, between the t...
The verse says: "Twelve golden ladles, full of incense, ten each ladle, in the sacred shekel; all the gold of the ladles was one hundred and twenty." Okay, twelve golden ladles. Go...
A quote from Deuteronomy, saying God is "near it." But who is "it"? The verse itself speaks of a nation that has God near to it. Devarim Rabbah, in its characteristic fashion, find...
